127. Courteous : NICE. Dear Agnes lost her nephew to heart attack earlier this week. She's devastated. Agnes did not have kids and she was very close this nephew.Please keep her and her family in your thoughts.

128. Strongly longing : EAGER

129. Beech family trees : OAKS

130. Looks after : TENDS

131. Durbeyfield daughter : TESS. How I wish the story ended differently.

132. __ Island Red: chicken : RHODE

133. Duma denial : NYET

134. University town near Bangor : ORONO

Down:

1. Anti-DWI org. : SADD

2. __-dieu : PRIE

3. German composer Carl : ORFF. Also 6. German candy brand : RIESEN

4. Starts of feuds : RIFTS

5. Pristine : EDENIC

7. Possesses : OWNS

8. Drill insert : BIT

9. Funny couple? : ENS

10. Some Olympic trials : SPRINTS

11. Set for repairs : TOOL KIT. Boomer lost his neat set of tools to the TSA in March. He did not want to go back to put it in the checked luggage.

Noticed that the first word of all the theme answers made a difference, but figured there had to be more to the theme than that. Guess not. Tried to SAUTE when I should be STEAMing, but SAUTE showed up later. I also thought Mario's last name was PUTO (where was my brain going with that one?), but figured no comic strip would be named TITS. Overall, this was a nice outing. Thanx, MM and CC.

Texas Litter Control is offering male cat neutering for $25 today only, so we're off to drop off a few cats. They hold this often in the other side of the county, but seldom over here in redneck country.

Gotta share this travesty. Our local Improvement District held a weekend long celebrity event last month: Rock the Ranch. It was very poorly advertised, and as a result, very poorly attended. Plus tickets, starting at $75, were way too expensive for most folks. The final report from the District: total cost = $1.3M total revenue = $92K for a net loss of $1.2M. They called it a "learning experience." I have other terms for it.

Catching the theme early made the solve a lot easier. The ALTERNATIVE had to be changed to ALTERNATE before the perps took care of UNIVERSE, as I was clueless on the TV show.

TROLLOPE- I thought that a 'trollop' was a hooker or slut who SEDUCES you to become NAKED after she takes your money. Never heard of the author. I've learned about most of the television shows on this blog. SIG, from Deadliest Catch, Star Trek TNG, Fringe ( never heard of); I have no interest in watching any of them. RSS, ORFF, PGDN, RIESEN- those were perped. My keyboards (Logitech) have 'Page Up' and 'Page Down'. I finished the puzzle on PGDN crossing TROLLOPE with only two changes: ANTE to ANEW and RTES to MAPS.

HILO, Hawaii- Hawaii County is 'The Big Island', and each island is a county- Wailuku on Maui, Honolulu on Oahu, .. etc.Body shop job- they just replace parts because beating a DENT out of plastic is nearly impossible.

Hi Y'all! Thanks for a meaty challenge, Mark! Thanks, C.C. for the great expo and news about Agnes & Melissa although it wasn't what we'd prefer to hear about them.

Agnes, so sorry for your loss of your nephew. A nephew can be so special.

Melissa, I hope you are okay and not too traumatized by your accident.

Lots of NAMES today. I knew all the ones C.C. listed together for once. Didn't know TROLLOPE. My take on that was like Big Easy's. ALDA was all perps. DUH! Who doesn't know ALDA? ORFF & RIESEN were also all perps. Names come and go in my mind. One week I spent 3 days trying to think of the name of a friend with whom I worked for years. I woke up this morning and said Trudeau aloud after not remembering it yesterday. I went to bed before ANON T posted. Tony honey, I hope you don't get that ol' timer's malady some day.

The backyard chef equipment gave me trouble. We didn't cook in the backyard much. Last fill was "M" in the SMOKER/M SEC cross. I only knew "n SEC" and that turned a blazing red. Perps filled SKEWER. Never used any of this equipment.

Tried mAUvE before TAUPE. Knew better too.

ZITS is one of my favorite comic strips. Maybe because I raised two boys. However, mine kept their rooms neat without being told and were industrious workers. Still are. Both were in little bands and drove old vehicles.

Yesterday's discussion about the Chief Tweeter: why would anyone be surprised that his attitude toward Russia would be different than most Americans, especially those who lived through the cold war? After all the guy married two women who were born in Communist bloc nations. Ivana was born in Czechoslavakia before Communism went underground. Melania was born in Slovenia, formerly Yugoslavia. Her father was a card carrying Communist under dictator Marshall Tito. Her parents now are reportedly living in the USA White House to help with their young grandson Baron. American voters can be so naive.

I like "GN" words and had two of them today. I have also seen GNARR and GNUR for growling sounds.

This having to use the LA Times' site to do the puzzles is getting very old! No .puz files on Cruciverb for the last two weeks, and no explanation from the owner. Bummer.

Always happy to see some Ogden Nash in the puzzle.

This seemed easier to me than most Sundays are. There were a number of vertical clues/answers that I didn't see until I came here, as the horizontals had taken care of them first.

Most neighborhoods around here are still cleaning up after Friday night's storms, and the flooding on the Fox, DesPlaines, and DuPage rivers continues to make life miserable for so many people. Yesterday the Fox, near the Illinois-Wisconsin border, was still about 6 feet over flood stage.

Trollope wrote about trollops. There's a "nym" word for this, but I don't remember what it is. Help!Thanks C.C. Your comments about crossword construction are interesting and instructive.And thanks to Mark for a great start to the week.

To further clarify my thought, anyone who has been around people of other ethnic groups, races, religions, or ethics has a different understanding than those people who have no contact with others. This was not referring to C.C. or Boomer or anyone else in a negative way. Please re-read what I said. The experiences of the man are different than most of us, right or wrong.

Thanks, all for the comments, and C.C. for fine expo. I'll take your (accurate) comment about the blanks and word count as a compliment, as I do indeed strive for clean fill above all. Acknowledging the comments that the theme wasn't all that exciting (it wasn't), but you gotta agree it was different ;) . . . Corner fans are the greatest, though I could do without the political bickering (get enough of that elsewhere). Cheers to all!

Oh my! I got almost all of this one! Quite an accomplishment for me on a Sunday. Thanks, Mark, for the fun and the ego-lift. I even got the theme and didn't think it was un-exciting (is that a word.). Just different! Hehehe

IM, I'm sure that every Cornerite (here in CornerSTAN) have felt the depths of spirit that comes with losing a loved one. My heart is with you while you bear the unbearable.

Hand up for nSEC before MSEC, rteS before MAPS, and had "in NO account" before "ON NO account". I wanted XML before RSS became apparent. I guessed the Natick of TR_LLOPE x TW_L to be an "i", the first of my three bad cells. The other two were "by GOLLY" instead of "OH GOLLY" (too much ham radio in my ute). I just got lazy and missed the idea that PSYCyIC probably wasn't a good choice. Twelve vocabulary builders today, so I won't list them.

Thanks to Mark and CC for a fun Sunday. It was just right for me - just a little over my head.

I don't always do the Sunday puzzles because they take so much precious time, but I arose early enough today to tackle this one from a contributor whose work I have enjoyed before. I'll have to say today's puzzle was a crunchier challenge than the usual Sunday, with too many learning moments to enumerate. Well done, Mark, and thanks for stopping by. CC, thanks for your usual sterling job on the expo. The amount of work and insight you bring to this corner is uplifting. By the way, I have to ask. What the heck is Stinky Tofu? That's a new one to me. Is it fermented? Is it delicious stinky like limburger cheese? Inquiring minds want to know.

BTW, a rerun of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" program convinced me to invest in some Grains of Paradise (and trust me, invest is the correct word). They are an alternative to black pepper related to the ginger plant and from west Africa, and after loading my pepper mill with them I swear that I may never go back to pepper. GoP are much more complex and flavorful, with many new and more nuances of flavor. I highly recommend that you all try if the opportunity presents itself.

What a terrific puzzle. I always like your work, Mark. When I solved TRAP and RUSE I thought those were a couple instances of the "not the same" theme. Then came HAI and YES, STEAM and SAUTES, HAIKU and ODES, and the two four-letter Nevada cities. Unfortunately those distracted my THINKING from cottoning to the real theme entries.

I loved the clues for NAKED, ANEW, ANY, and PSYCHIC.

I like the character CHUNK on the TV show Bull.

ON NO account will I ever again be persuaded to eat stinky Tofu.

Carl threw me for a while because I thought the Germans always spelled it Karl, so it took me a tad longer than it should have for me to get ORFF.

Well done, Mark!

This puzzle took me much longer than usual because, for some reason, the "direction" that my typing went was the opposite of what I thought I had it set to. To say that more clearly, often when I was entering an across word such as LARDS I would fail to notice that my cursor was proceeding downwards, wiping out ALDA, EAGER, and RHODE. Then I would later wonder how the heck I made all those typos. Gotta be reeeeal careful using that LA Times Arkadium-based web page!

Agnes, my condolences for the loss of your nephew, and hopeful wishes that you traverse your grief speedily.

Melissa, glad you weren't hurt.

PK, I admire your ability and willingness to better understand other people and their points of view by putting yourself in their shoes, or at least understanding where their shoes came from.

Mark, I did like this puzzle and found it fun to fill the theme entries. I don't know why you would be concerned that the puzzle isn't exciting. We solve crossword puzzles. If we needed more excitement, we'd drive race cars. LOL!

Jayce, thank you. I've always had this deep curiosity and the desire to know what makes people tick. Gots me in lotsa trouble.

Very late tonight after visiting with all 6 grandchildren today. I finished this puzzle last night and wanted to thank Mark and C.C. For the fun.I saw the theme and eventually got all the OTHER words.Loved the new clue for ERIE. I wanted MADD for 1D but was sure of SPORE, and then I remembered the Students who joined the Mothers.

Do they have ESSO in Britain? It is usually clued in relation to Canada but we do not call gas "petrol" here.

I think I learned NOH and GNAR doing previous CWs.I smiled at "PLEDGED" three rows below the sorority letters.

Thanks for the verses Owen. I noted your CSO.

Thanks AnonT for the NAFTA info. The talks are at the top of the radar screen here and I wasn't sure if the same importance was being given to them in the US. Another example of what Trudeau the Elder meant when he referred to the elephant twitching.

Sympathy to Agnes on the sudden death of her nephew.

Glad to hear Melissa was not hurt in accident. Hope there are no lingering after-effects.

Thanks Mark for dropping in. I didn't play but I can admire the art. I think quality of fill beats out fancy grids (unless the grid's-void is the theme) or touching on A-Z.

IM, I'm so sorry for the loss of your nephew especially one so close to you.

Maripro - the word you're looking for is Aptronym. I love it when I bump against one.

{B, A+, B+, A}

D-O: $1.3M? @$75/ticket that means 17,333.3 folks need to show just to break-even. Even if they had tiered pricing - how many folk did they expect to show? Esp. In your neck of the woods. I think the "learning" your council members need is 1) rudimentary math and 2) they don't get your vote :-)It's like the Smart Center we just opened up in Sugar Land. $83M to build and so far this year, $500,000 in extra tax revenue. OK, so the ROI is 81 years? Assuming no repairs needed in that time frame? It is cool, Yes is coming. [Bunny M - Yes w/ Geddy!]

PK - Ditto. I'm also curious and see confluence of things and want to ask; sometimes I find I step in it. I was trying to answer C, Eh!'s Q re: NAFTA the way I see it (I guess someone could take what I said as biased). Sorry if you got dragged down w/ me!

Today the girls & I did the grocery shopping and then made spiral-pasta salad, tomato-based Italian sausage & peppers (for grinders), and rigatoni for dinner. I think, with side salads, we're set for the week.

Oh Oh politics...but I came close too with my pen and ink but MADD was my first fill and Washington State was toast. How many different groups are there against driving impaired ? Of course in the US we have about 500 cancer charities and most are out and out scams,

Politically speaking can I just thank my dear departed Dad for having the good sense to be born in Bathurst New Brunswick. I have to go down to the consulate to pick up my shining new Canadian eh passport !